Tuesday was an election night where the biggest figures on each side were not clear-cut winners or losers.

MIXED

President Trump

The bottom line: The president’s party lost its majority in the House of Representatives.

That is a hugely significant development. It's not just a wound to political pride. It brings with it the specter of ongoing turmoil.

ADVERTISEMENT

Democrats will now take over House committees and, crucially, gain the ability to subpoena whomever they wish. That could spell real trouble for Trump, his administration and even his business associates.

But it could have been much, much worse.

Democrats will likely gain about 35 seats in the House, though results are not yet final. That is squarely in line with historic norms for a president’s party in his first midterms.

In President Obama’s first midterms, in 2010, Democrats endured a disastrous night, losing 63 seats. In 1994, President Clinton saw his party lose 54 seats.

Trump will undoubtedly claim the GOP’s strong Senate performance as a vindication.

The president’s rallies in the final days of the campaign saw him make two visits each to Indiana, Missouri and Florida, three of the states where the GOP notched its best results.

As results were still coming in, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters, “So far, most of the races where the president has gone in, those candidates are doing extremely well.”

The full ramifications of the loss of the House may take some time to be felt in the Oval Office.

But for now, the president will focus on some sizable silver linings.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas)

O’Rourke was unquestionably the breakout liberal star of the midterm cycle.

O’Rourke raised an astronomical sum of $38.1 million in the third quarter — a figure that had never been equaled in any Senate race.

But he still lost, in the end.

Cruz was projected the winner at around 10:20 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday night. Early Wednesday, with 97 percent of precincts reporting, his lead was about 3 percentage points.

O’Rourke’s charisma and perceived authenticity ensure that he will retain a fervent following. And he can fairly point to the huge inroads that he made — Cruz had won by 15 points in 2012.

But a loss is still a loss. If O’Rourke has further political ambitions — and there is avid speculation that he could run for president — he will have to pursue them without any platform in elected office.

WINNERS

House Democrats

It was a strong night for Democrats in the House. The result is in line with expectations — not a blowout victory but not a squeaker either.

At 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, The New York Times was projecting a Democratic popular vote margin of more than 7 percentage points and a 23-seat majority.

They will be able to block most of the president’s domestic agenda. They can also launch impeachment proceedings against Trump if they wish — though there is notably less enthusiasm for that tactic among party leaders than among grass-roots supporters.

It’s a result that will change the whole dynamic of Capitol Hill — and expose Trump to the kind of scrutiny he has never faced before.

Senate Republicans

Realistically, the night could not have gone much better for the GOP in the Senate. With two competitive races still outstanding — in Arizona and Montana — they have netted somewhere between two and four seats.

Two would be a solid showing. Four would be at the high end of Republican expectations.

Republicans also turned back Democratic challenges adroitly in the couple of states where the opposition party held out some hope of success.

It was a crushing loss for Gillum and for the activists who had rallied to his cause.

Deepening the Democratic gloom, Gillum’s party colleague in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, was also behind in her race for governor, which had been dogged by allegations of malfeasance by her opponent Brian Kemp, who oversees elections in his current post as Georgia’s secretary of state.

Scrutiny will inevitably fall on Schumer given Democrats’ disappointing night in the Senate.

His allies will argue that is unfair, given the unforgiving nature of the battleground this year for Democrats. To be sure, it is not clear what alternative strategy Democrats could have adopted that would have delivered better results.

Still, Schumer would have hoped to limit losses on Tuesday to maximize his chances of finally becoming majority leader after the 2020 elections, when the map is more favorable for his party.

That task just became much harder.

The GOP’s Trump critics

Most Republican lawmakers have bound themselves tightly to the president but some members who were fighting for reelection in competitive districts dissented.